HERMANN HESSE AND THE DIALECTICS OF TIME Salvatore C. P. ...

This longing for a transcendental (eternal) harmony is indebted to the Romantic
tradition and contrasts, on the part of Hesse's characters, with the need to catch a
glimpse of that harmony in their lives, that is within the boundaries of time. Despite
all their flirtation with death, most of Hesse's characters are driven by an
unmistakable, although sometimes desperate, love for life and, in this respect, they
express positions closer to Existentialists than to Romantics as we noted in relation
to the finale of Der Steppenwolf in Chapter 3 (section 2). 19 For all Hesse's concern, as a
man and artist, with spiritual matters and eternal values, and although the miseries
and bitterness of the human condition are largely represented in his art, a fervent
eulogy to the simplicity, sometimes naivety, of earthly life is the blueprint for the
majority of his works, as emerges from this excerpt from Kurgast:
Und wieder einmal war ich leidenschaftlich dem Gegenpol des Geistes
zugetan, war innig und trunken verliebt in die dumme gesetzlose Welt des
Zufalls, in das Spiel der Sonne- und Schattenflecke am hellrosigen Boden, in
die vielen Melodien des stromenden Wassers. (SW 11,115)
The tension and pendulations between time and timelessness are a thematic and
structural element of Hesse's artistry as well as one of the antitheses on which his
thought hinges. 20 As largely acknowledged by scholars, Hesse's characters are, at the
end of their spiritual journey, often led to the realization that transcendence and
immanence interlock (see Chapter 1, section 2) and that 'the roots of the timeless are
embedded in the experiences acted out within the world of time' (Shaw, 210). 21
In what follows, our considerations on Hesse's idea of eternity will be based
on the assumption that the category of the timeless springs from the interplay of two
tendencies moving in opposite directions: towards time and towards its abolition. As
we will note in the next section, three other major themes and key points of his poetic
19 The emphasis on the positive value of the here and now is also in line with Hesse's rejection of the Buddhist
ambition to sever any individual tie to the material world. 'Siddhartha', Shaw points out, 'has learned that the
timeless may not be found apart from the medium of that self which time is still in the process of making. Being
does not reveal itself through the negation of Becoming' (209).
20 'Zwischen diesen beiden Punkten - der Zeit und der Ewigkeit - entfaltet sich die Handlung des Romans'
(Karalaschwili, 228).
21 Shaw's statements echoe Karalaschwili's: 'Doch allein schon die Tatsache, daU die Welt durch die Zeit und in
der Zeit wahrgenommen wird, wird jedes Mal unbestreitbar bleiben' (223).
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